Michael FINNISSY: Song 15
Giacinto SCELSI: Hô
Hans Werner HENZE: Being Beauteous
David LESSER: Ten Virgil Settings
Milko KELEMEN: Die sieben Plagen
Cathy BERBERIAN: Stripsody

CLARE LESSER soprano
(with David Lesser, piano)

Metier msvcd 92102 [54 mins]

Acquired as an addition to my burgeoning Scelsi collection, Clare Lesser is blessed with a gorgeous voice and terrific technique. She is comfortable at the heights up in the leger lines and supported by an excellent recording ambience at Birmingham Conservatoire.

The programme is nicely varied, with Kelemen and Berberian exploiting a vast range of vocal effects, the latter's derived from comic strips ! A very entertaining disc.

All texts are provided, in the original French & Latin. There is an unnecessary apology for minimal ambient noise which does nothing to impair the pleasure of an exceptional disc; think of it as Cageian, music as part of life..

Peter Grahame Woolf

See also our review of Clare & David Lesser in Lieder by Rihm.